I can’t believe this was our third Book Club Christmas!! Some have come and some have gone but the hardcore group remains. Lol! We once again went to The Brit Pub in nearby Cwmafan for a very Christmas night out armed with parcels, chocolates and dingbats!! We pre-ordered from this delicious menu and I must say that the food was lovely.
We briefly discussed our chosen book ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ but only two the group had managed to finish reading it in the allocated time! However, we all agreed that we would continue to read as it is such a wonderfully well written delight of a read. I am at a stage where I am struggling a little as it seems that nothing is happening but the pleasure of reading the written word and conjuring up the images that is creates is worth the struggle. I also have it on strong recommendation that it is a roller coaster of emotions book and has its ups and down so keep at it. I love the count. He is the kind of person that I would love to spend time with. He is such a humble gentleman and I’m sure it would have been a privilege to know him and be his friend.
I can’t write too much about the book in this blog as I haven’t read enough but very briefly the book begins in 1922 Russia and spans 30 years all seen through the eyes of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov. The Count has been placed under house arrest and is destined to spend his years in a luxury hotel, the Metropol. It is not, however, the luxury suite that he has been living in for the last several years, but he has now been moved to a small attic room with only a little window to look out of each day. He meets a number of guests and staff, forms relationships with these and from this experience the love, friendship and humanity that these encounters provoke. Much more that that I can not tell you as I have not read much more and thank you so much to Adam and Jayne for not wanting to discuss the book last night as four of us had not complete it! Shameful!
Please leave us your thoughts and comments on this book. Thank you. Merry Christmas.
Neath Book Club Blogger 
I read this last year…mixed feelings, some lovely writing…but…apart from the necessary suspension of disbelief required to accept the whole idea of the book…it’s also unrealistic that he should have been allowed to stay there to enjoy a luxurious life in Stalin’s Russia.
It also skipped all the horrors of collectivisation, the whole of World War two!…there is little real reflection of the true pressures of so many years of house arrest.
Then there is the huge improbability of Sofie…she is just a cardboard character…we have no insight as to her growing up and how, as an adolescent, they coped within such a tiny flat.
Pity really…I entered it, enjoyed parts…but felt disappointed at the end.
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Hi Robert. Thanks so much for that great review on the book. I know exactly what you mean and see your point of view but I think the writing just got me and captured me in its magic that I completely forgot what was going on in the world around him. I think it’s because we don’t witness any of it, we just hear about it from the countless visitors the Count has. There was the bit about someone being sent to the Gulag. We know he is going there but we don’t go there with him so we can’t identify with the atrocity that he will meet there (to digress, we have also read a book call the ‘The Industry of Souls’ by Martin Booths which is partly set in the Gulag. It’s a beautiful story and highly recommended.) Because we only hear snippets of what’s going on in the world outside the hotel it’s difficult, as a reader, to experience them.
I wondered about Sofie and thought that story line was rather weak and how dare he not tell us what became of her. I also agree that it seems that the toils of war had no apparent adverse affect on him but I don’t think that was the point of the book. To me it was a book of whimsical delight which made me smile very often and I simply wanted to be his friend, be in the life of this charming, sensitive, polite, witty, handsome, composed, refined, empathetic gentleman! I could not help but fall in love with Count Alexander Ilych Rostov! Lol!! I’ll bring these comments up in our next Book Club meeting despite the fact that it was a while since we read the book. It’s always good to hear what others have to say. Thank you. Our last read was a book called Tin Man by Sarah Winman! Beautiful! We are now reading ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ by Delia Owens. Good to hear from you.
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